Kundura Memory Archive and Research Center
The main collection includes the Beykoz Leather and Footwear Factory, as well as other factories affiliated with Sümerbank and Etibank, and focuses on the industrial history of the Ottoman and Republican periods through various sub-collections.
Kundura Memory aims to develop initiatives to preserve the cultural heritage of the Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory and to create new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, offering a rich resource for archival exhibitions, workshops, academic, and artistic projects.
Exhibition
Opened in June 2021, the exhibition “Kundura's Memory: A World Fitting into a Factory” offers a different perspective on the production history of the Sümerbank Beykoz Leather and Leather Goods Factory, one of the cornerstones of Turkey's industrialization history.
Workshops
Workshops for children and adults aim to connect the past, present, and future of the Sümerbank Leather and Leather Goods Factory, one of the country's most important industrial heritage sites, with the Kundura Memory archive.
Workshop activities draw inspiration from the “Shoe Memory: A World Fitted into a Factory” exhibition and the Kundura Memory Archive.
We invite everyone to experience different themes and concepts in the interdisciplinary field of Kundura Memory's multi-layered structure and to participate in workshop activities prepared with original content. By focusing on production and creativity, we aim to continue this dialogue with participants from all walks of life.
Shift
Launched in 2022, the artist program Shift creates new spaces for thinking and encountering art and archives.
Designed as a series of projects that preserve, monitor, and safeguard the archive, the program invites artists from various disciplines in Turkey.
Vardiya empowers artists to interpret within the context of the fundamental principles of archiving—collection and compilation—thereby creating a research space through artistic practice and enabling collaboration and access to the archive.
Association
The Association works to document, protect, and preserve the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Beykoz Kundura and Beykoz in particular, and Turkey in general. Through projects developed with its own resources or through national and international collaborations, it aims to contribute to the sustainability of cultural heritage.
All projects of the Kundura Memory Archive and Research Center are implemented under the umbrella of the Kundura Memory Cultural Heritage Protection Association. Additionally, numerous social responsibility projects are carried out within the association.
